Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to mobile devices and more particularly to authentication of operations at mobile devices.
Description of the Related Art
Mobile devices, such as compute-enabled cell phones, are increasingly used to facilitate sensitive operations, including financial operations, storage and transfer of personal information, and the like. To provide security for such operations, a mobile device can implement an authentication procedure, wherein it will not execute a secure operation until an authentication value is verified. For some mobile devices, the initial pairing parameters for authentication are generated by a biometric device based on biometric information (e.g., a fingerprint) of a user. Other mobile devices employ a near field communication (NFC) chip to transfer the authentication parameters (or sensitive information) to or from another device placed in close proximity. However, both biometric and NFC security procedures require a mobile device that has been outfitted with additional hardware increasing the expense and complexity of the device.